Influence of environmental heterogeneity on distributional pattern of blue panic grass (PANICUM ANTIDOTALE RETZ.) IN the Punjab, Pakistan

Panicum antidotale Retz. is an evergreen, vigorous and C4 perennial grass growing up to 1 to 3m in length. It is commonly known as Bansi grass, Murrot, Giant panic, Ghirri, Ghamur and blue panic belonging to a fascinating family Poaceae), originated from Indo-Pakistan region, and now naturalized in arid and semiarid region. Forty-eight populations were collected from six habitats of the Punjab, i.e., agricultural fields, river canal banks, roadsides, saline habitats, uncultivated lands, graveyards and forest plantations and waterlogged / industrial wastes pollution to explore their important attributes associated with widespread distribution of this native species across environmental heterogeneity. Among agricultural fields, P. antidotale was the most abundant at Brassica field at Makhdoom Rasheed (MR). Among saline habitats, importance value and relative cover was the maximum in highly saline Pasrur (PS). Among waterlogged areas and industrial waste pollutions, ecological attributes were the maximum in industrial waste disposal channel Gojra (GOJ). In saline habitat, RD showed negative trend with increasing salinity, while RF and RC showed positive response along salinity gradient. Importance value (IV) showed liner trend with increase in salinity. Among roadsides, soil Ca/sup 2+/, NO/sub 3/–, OM, ECe and pH showed strong association with RF in SUM, SR and JHG sites. It was concluded that climate, soil and other abiotic factors have significant effect on species composition and distributional pattern of widespread Panicum antidotale Retz. in the Punjab, Pakistan. (author)